Hey all, I finally found some nottinghams, got one for a SP and one for my next batch of Apfelwein. now I made a started similar to how Geniz did his, made it with the dry yeast and water and sugar and then add a bit of the SP, and let it sit...then added some more, and so on until my 1/2G jar was 3/4 full, and still bubbling away good...then I dumped that into my pail, and nada....nothing...its still on 1.060 for the last 2 days...

I'm not sure how to get it started up again...should I had more nutrients...heat up the pail a bit by placing it into another larger tub, of warm/hot water to raise the temps, to get the yeasties going again?

I don't want to pitch the other nottinghams, as I wanted to save it for my apfelwein, and its pretty hard to come by around here (drove over an hour and bought their only 2 packs).

__________________Reality is an illusion that occurs due to the lack of alcohol.Give a man a beer, he'll drink for the day.Teach a man to brew, he'll be drunk the rest of his life.I have 8 carboys, 8 cornies, 5-1 gal jugs, 200 wine bottles, 10 cases of beer bottles and a nice assortment of flip tops....My goal is to keep them at least 50% occupied

Yes, I followed the instructions exactly, except using a yeast starter of course. So there is already some nutrients & energizer in there, but should I add more? & I've been stirring it daily as well, also using a stainless steel whisk to really get it aerated, same as I did with my first batch, but I used the EC-1118 then though. This is my first attempt with a yeast other then the 1118. Thanks for the reply.

ok, said screw it...added another 3 tsp. of the yeast nutrient and 1 tsp. of the yeast energizer, the samething you are supposed to add when it hits 1.050, but I added it now, to get things moving, hopefully...

yes it is an ale yeast, that was my thought process for using it...I'm going to use it for my apfelwein as well. I have read that the EC-1118 tends to strip away the fruit flavors almost completely, where as an ale yeast leaves more of them hanging around. also, I figured since it was an ale yeast, that it would not ferment to as high of an ABV as the 1118 did, which would make for a slightly easier drinking "Everyday summer beverage", at about 7-9% as opposed to the EC-1118 which was 12-16% I think.

or have I simplified it a little bit too much here, and it just doesn't work that way?

I used an ale yeast on my spiced pumpkin mead and it did great. Stopped fermenting at about 9.5% ABV. The ale yeast should start just fine in a wine. Low PH may be the problem here. In SP you are only adding about 2/3 the of the real lemon juice up front and later adding the 3rd bottle. Are you doing that or was all the lemon introduced up front? It may be worth it to run and get some ph strips and if the must is below about 3.4 then add in a little potassium bicarbonate and keep testing until you get to about 3.5 or so.

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A painting says a thousand words. But a painting while on good mead just looks funny!

arpolis, yes I followed the recipe steps exactly, only using 2 of 3 bottles of the real lemon. I'll go grab some of those PH strips today...and then just add potassium bicarbonate until it gets higher then 3.4, correct?

thanks, also, is there another name for potassium bicarbonate? I know somethings in this hobby have a few different names, and when I go ask for them at my local small town shops I'm usually greeted as if I had two heads or something, LOL...

Not sure if there is another name. My LHBS caries 2oz bottles of the stuff just called what it is.

And yes the yeast usually likes PH ranges arounf 3.5 - 4.0. It can work higher but I would want to keep the PH as low as possible on this being a lemon wine. Too high a PH and this would just taste funny.

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A painting says a thousand words. But a painting while on good mead just looks funny!